Story of America Cards

The Pentagon

Hello Everyone, today we are gonna drop into the history of America's defense by talking about its home The Pentagon from Story of America Cards in the Government Category.

(What is the Pentagon?)

The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase The Pentagon is often used as a metonym for the Department of Defense and its leadership.

(Home of the Defense Department)

It has been called a maze within a maze, and indeed many people have become hopelessly lost among its miles of corridors...(Apparently). It is the Pentagon, or National Defense Building, Headquarters of the U.S Department of Defense.

A pentagonal, or five-sided, structure, it is located in Alexandria, Virgina, Just across the Potomac River from Washington D.C, and houses the highest echelons of the U.S Army, Navy, and Air force. Designed by George Edwin Bergstorm, it was built during World War II for use by the many agencies of the U.S War Department.

The building was completed on January 15th 1943, at the cost of about $83 million. The Pentagon is five stories high and is one of the world's largest office buildings.

It is twice the size of Merchandise Mart in Chicago and its floor space is 3,707,745 square feet (344, 450 sq.m) is three times the size of the Empire State Building in New York City, The structure houses approximately 26,000 employees.

The Pentagon building, which is surrounded by lawns and terraces, takes up 34 acres out of a total land area of 204 acres, Its design features five concentric rings of building connected by ten corridors, with a courtyard covering five acres in the center, The total length of the corridors measures 17½ miles (28.2 km.).

To avoid confusion, each floor has a different color scheme for easy identification.

Each of the five sides of the Pentagon measures 921 feet (279.9 m.) long and the perimeter of the whole building is seven-eighths of a mile (1.4 km.). The Pentagon is often likened to a city in itself, which it is during weekdays.

It boasts the largest branch telephone exchange in the world, for the convenience of military personnel, government workers, and visitors its facilities include banks, soda fountains, and shops of every description, all located within a huge concourse about the size of two football fields.

Beneath the concourse are bus and taxi terminals, with a helicopter pad located nearby. The Pentagon's parking lot can hold more than 8,000 cars. Within its walls The Pentagon houses the core of the world's most powerful military machine. For here the country's top admirals and generals confer on military planning and strategy that affects everyone, directly and indirectly.

Giant computers (Proppely small now because then again I'm reading a card printed in 1979), are fed information daily that is translated into new troop deployments, contracts for weapons manufacture, shifts in U.S foreign policy, and the like. Rooms filled with maps literally pinpoint America's military stance in every part of the world.

(9/11 Pentagon Attack)

I don't know if this may be sensitive for some people so if it does for you please skip this part, so we know what happened on September 11th 2001, The world trade center was destroyed by a hijacked plane by Al-Qaeda and a lot of innocent people lost their lives and thought it was a normal day until the attack happen but did you know the Pentagon was also attack during 9/11. (Ok of course you have too, but definitely the attack at the world trade center had mostly shadowed it).

On September 11, 2001, coincidentally the 60th anniversary of the Pentagon's groundbreaking, five al-Qaeda affiliated hijackers took control of American Airlines Flight 77, en route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, and deliberately crashed the Boeing 757 airliner into the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 am EDT as part of the September 11 attacks.

The impact of the plane severely damaged the outer ring of one wing of the building and caused its partial collapse. At the time of the attacks, the Pentagon was under renovation and many offices were unoccupied, resulting in fewer casualties. Only 800 of 4,500 people who would have been in the area were there because of the work. Furthermore, the area hit, on the side of the Heliport façade, was the section best prepared for such an attack. The renovation there, improvements which resulted from the Oklahoma City bombing, had nearly been completed.

It was the only area of the Pentagon with a sprinkler system, and it had been reconstructed with a web of steel columns and bars to withstand bomb blasts. The steel reinforcement, bolted together to form a continuous structure through all of the Pentagon's five floors, kept that section of the building from collapsing for 30 minutes—enough time for hundreds of people to crawl out to safety. The area struck by the plane also had blast-resistant windows—2 inches (5 cm) thick and 2,500 pounds (1,100 kg) each—that stayed intact during the crash and fire. It had fire doors that opened automatically and newly built exits that allowed people to get out.

Contractors already involved with the renovation were given the added task of rebuilding the sections damaged in the attacks. This additional project was named the "Phoenix Project" and was charged with having the outermost offices of the damaged section occupied by September 11th 2002.

When the damaged section of the Pentagon was repaired, a small indoor memorial and chapel were added at the point of impact. For the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a memorial of 184 beams of light shone up from the center courtyard of the Pentagon, one light for each victim of the attack. In addition, an American flag is hung each year on the side of the Pentagon damaged in the attacks, and the side of the building is illuminated at night with blue lights. After the attacks, plans were developed for an outdoor memorial, with construction underway in 2006. This Pentagon Memorial consists of a park on 2 acres (8,100 m2) of land, containing 184 benches, one dedicated to each victim. The benches are aligned along the line of Flight 77 according to the victims' ages, from 3 to 71. The park opened to the public on September 11 2008.

(I Felt like talking about and adding this part due to it being related to the Pentagon which is the main topic of this card).

(Ending)

And that's the history of The Pentagon from the Story of America cards, I hope you liked it and I'll see you in my other cards.